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Making Better Choices at the Vending Machine

From candy bars to fresh apple slices, the options we get at vending machines today are as diversified as ever before. With the increasing trends in health and wellness among individuals nowadays, vendors are beginning to place healthier snack options in their machines. An article in the Des Moines Register the other day caught our eye. It was an interview with Janette Batts, a registered dietitian and license dietitian nutritionist with UnityPoint Health – Des Moines as she shared her tips on how to make healthier choices at a vending machine. We absolutely loved her notes and what she had to say about a lot of our favorite snacks, so we decided to put together a short list of tips to making these healthier choices.

Here are a few tips:

Look out for snacks that have already been labelled as the “Healthier Choice”

Make use of vending machines that provide you with nutritional information of the snacks they carry

Stay away from foods with high trans-fats, MSG and added sugar

Learn the names for different forms of sugar such as fructose, molasses, malt, sucrose

Ingredients that you can’t pronounce can usually be avoided

Use a Food App to get educated on the foods you consume – like MyFitnessPal

Candy bars are great but everything needs to be done in moderation

If you like snacking frequently, then plan for lighter meals and then have wholesome snacks in between

Here are also Janette’s list of Best & Worse snacks from Vending Machines and some other ideas for snacks to pack from home: